


Eroded

by Weddersins



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Families of Choice, Gen, Lonely Luke, angst angst angst, ends on a happy note, its all i can write apparently, the past is a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 22:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weddersins/pseuds/Weddersins
Summary: Not even Luke Skywalker can run forever, even if he wanted to. The past will always shadow his steps.-A slightly-AU canonverse look at what Luke may have been thinking on Ahch-To.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ibecomeaffinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibecomeaffinity/gifts).



> For ibecomeaffinity, who reads all of my crappy fanfic and keeps me mostly sane.
> 
> This is a slightly-AU canonverse retelling of the events on Ahch-To from Luke’s perspective. It can be read as a precursor to Behemoth, or by itself. The major difference between Eroded and established canon is that Rey spends far more time on the island in this little ficlet. 
> 
> Anyways - I hope you enjoy!

The day began as it usually did - with a groan, and a creak of protesting bones. He rose from the bed, stretching the soreness from muscles that had frozen into place overnight. Wizened hands, one flesh and one a mockery of life cast in cold metal, grabbed a roughspun outer robe and shrugged it into place. Staggering steps brought him to a small door, where he leaned heavily against the opening.

Slowly, he blinked the bleariness from clouded eyes as the sea-birds dove for their breakfast. A crashing chorus of waves gnawed at the jagged coastline, the background static of his existence. He paused for only a moment to listen before toeing on dirty boots.

One thing was certain - Luke Skywalker was not growing any younger.

The last of the Jedi set about his morning routine with his usual lack of enthusiasm. Each day was nearly the same - little to no variation was necessary, and hence no variation occurred. The processes that he carried out were required to sustain his life, but that did not mean he enjoyed them.

Perhaps a part of him still loved swinging between the cliffsides using nothing but a flimsy-looking pole. It reminded him of a time long ago, when he had been young and full of promise. Before history had its eyes on him. 

But those times were gone, and the curious blankness where the Force should echo between his bones mocked him. _You failed._

Shaking the traitorous train of thought from his head, Luke resumed his trek across the craggy spires and windblown grasses of the island he called home. A colony of porgs chortled and wheeked to his left, and the sea-birds above him cried. Sounds as familiar to him as the noise of his own heartbeat, the roar of the ocean waves. Omnipresent, unchangeable. 

But then - a new noise. A change. The full-throated roar of engines that cried out from his memories, a grey disk materializing on the horizon like a ghost. 

The Falcon. 

Luke stood still as a stone, back to the waves crashing below him, as the ship landed a few hills away from where he stood. Fear, more than curiosity, kept his boots rooted to the rock they were planted on. The ship banked and circled the small island in a lazy loop before finding a place to settle down. He listened to the whine of the engines as they powered off, the frantic squawking of a handful of porgs as they fled the steely giant that had invaded their home. Luke sympathized.

He could have called on the Force, stretched out and found out exactly who was on the Falcon, who had managed to find him after all these years, but he allowed his connection to remain cold and still. In absence of that activity, his mind leapt into overdrive. Was it truly Han? His sister?

How could he possibly face them after what he had done? The weight of his failure was a millstone around his neck, squeezing the breath from his lungs. Luke considered a retreat, but ultimately thought better of it. This conversation would not be any easier for being delayed. It had already been postponed for fifteen long years. No - better to swallow the bitter pill, get it over with. 

So, he waited, watching the brown-furred blurry lump of Chewbacca exit the craft, followed closely by someone he couldn’t quite recognize. Taller than his sister, but with the same deep-brown hair. Her strides were long and confident, even as she hesitated at the foot of the outcropping he stood on before beginning the long climb to the top. 

Luke permitted himself to move, then. It was going to take her nearly an hour to reach the empty stone village which he had called home for the better part of two decades - and there was still the matter of breakfast. 

He turned back, ignoring the cold gnawing of fear in his stomach.


	2. Chapter Two

Luke had spent the better part of that hour working up to being well and properly pissed. _How dare she_ , he groused to himself, stalking over to the edge of a nearby cliff. _How dare they._ Waves roiled angrily below, reflecting his sentiments. Luke didn’t even know who “she” was yet, and he was already irritated with her.

It was only moments later that Luke heard soft footfalls, barely audible over the muted roar of the ocean. She had come. Fear and anger warring for supremacy, the Jedi stubbornly refused to turn around to face her. _Yes, girl. I know you’re here, bothering me. Leave._ He continued to watch the waves, willing their steady rhythm to wash away his unsettled thoughts just as their power wore away the rock beneath his feet; wearing away the stone slowly, slowly, over millennia.

But Luke had only moments by comparison, and the girl had already come as close as she dared. She wasn’t going anywhere - and he had already decided this wasn’t a problem he could run from. Consigning himself to the universe, Luke turned to face her with great reticence.

Her appearance surprised him, and it showed in a brief flicker over his face before Luke set his jaw. Too little weight was carried on her frame, her wiry body covered with clothes far better suited to the desert than the windy chill of Ahch-To. She was leaning heavily on a staff-turned-walking-stick, and her face showed just as much surprise at finding him as Luke had felt at being found. The same tick of fear was held there, too, carried in the lines of her brows as she stared openly at him.

As if encouraged by his turn towards her, the girl took a few steps forward, pausing to sling her staff back over her shoulder as she silently began to rummage in a ratty pack. _Maker help me, if she pulls out a hologram of my sister I will throw myself off this cliff._ Luke narrowed his eyes and resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest. After a moment’s further digging, the girl thrust something toward him gracelessly.

His lightsaber. Not the green-bladed one he had constructed, which was still safe inside his stone hut and hidden away from both the world and his own weakness. The silver-handled hilt was the very same one that Ben Kenobi had handed him in a dusty desert, a very long time ago. His father’s weapon, lost in the clouds of Bespin.

Luke didn’t have a chance to disguise the shock and trepidation he felt before they wrinkled his face, even if only for a moment. He clenched his teeth, watching the fear and anxiety in the girl’s expression war with her determination.

She was stubborn.

She took another halting step closer, still holding out the saber hilt. Luke made no move to take it, instead choosing to bore his ice-blue eyes into hers. The inane thought that there had been a hand attached to that saber the last time he had seen it colored his mind for a brief moment, causing the fingers of his mechanical appendage to twitch.

She stepped closer again, her eyes and the silent line of her mouth screaming at Luke to take the saber, break the silence, ask her why she had come.

Nothing else to be done. He couldn’t run this time - there was nowhere to go. Against his better judgment, Luke reached for the hilt with his natural hand, the cold metal of the lightsaber a harsh contrast to the warmth of his skin.

The Force that he had been successfully suppressing for years roared to life despite his control, and Luke saw far more than he wanted to.

His nephew. His sister. Han, falling. The girl. Strange power. And death.

Luke battled the sensation back, mastering himself with practice born of decades. Once the sight in his eyes had returned to him, he locked eyes with the girl.

The naked hope written on her face was too much.

Luke tossed the saber carelessly over the cliff behind him, unwilling to take the chance of it awakening something else better left alone. Let her fail. Let her crawl back to his widowed sister on her belly, hands empty. The girl and Chewbacca would leave, and he could be alone once more.

He was better alone.

He stalked past the surprised girl and down to his little hut, slamming the door with as much finality as possible.


	3. Chapter Three

Every time he looked out his window, Luke saw her. She had camped out in front of his hut overnight, completely disrupting his schedule. Her fists had banged on the battered x-wing-foil-turned-door, softly at first, but with increasing vigor and annoyance.

“Master Luke, please!” It had started off soft and polite, but her volume and temper had increased with nearly every repetition. Every time she said the word “master”, a new barb buried itself in his heart. He was not a master. Not anymore.

He had steadfastly ignored her continued pleas, listening instead to the plaintive evening calls of the Thala-sirens.

The girl had given up after sundown; puttering about outside his stone hut for some time before stilling herself in sleep. Luke had hoped she would simply disappear in the night, leaving him to his solitude once more. But she persisted. The next day was much the same. And the day after that.

It had gone on for weeks.

She was a constant presence behind him, sometimes silent, sometimes pestering and often impertinent. Sometimes she still tried to convince him to come back with her. Usually a raised eyebrow was enough to quell that line of questioning, but she was persistent.

Luke had learned that his stubborn shadow was called Rey, but he did not call her by her name. In fact, he said almost nothing to her. Why encourage the girl?

Besides. She would be gone soon.

Weeks bled into a month, and Rey took over the stone hut near his. The caretakers gave her the same skeptical eye they gave him, but cleaned her room the same as they did his own.

Still Rey followed him about his daily chores, but the questions became fewer and far between. She had adopted his silence for the most part, instead offering her help with his tasks. Luke had begrudgingly let her assist - she was eating his food, after all, she could surely help collect more of it - but was mindful that it was almost a way of giving his permission for her continued presence.

But, still. Sometimes, the way the evening fire seemed warmer when it was shared, or a meal more filling when prepared by someone other than himself was worth the intrusion.

The days continued their march, and despite his best intentions Luke found that he was becoming accustomed to her presence on the island. Rey was wasting her time trying to get him to return, but sometimes it was nice to see something on the isle aside from animal life and the cantankerous caretakers.

 But almost as soon as the thought left his mind, a new question started cropping up in Rey’s repertoire, irritating him even further.

“Master Skywalker, please. I can’t do this by myself. I need a teacher.”

This, too, he ignored. Luke was not a teacher. He had lost that right in a flash of bad judgment, a misstep that had cost his students their lives and sent his own nephew into the arms of darkness. The blood of innocents dripped from his fingers as he grimaced and turned away from Rey’s earnest face.

The first three times she asked the question over the period of a week, Luke ignored it. The fourth, the threads of his patience snapped as he growled back at her angrily. “I cannot teach you.” _I have failed so utterly. I will not fail again._

Rey had blinked, taken aback. It was one of the few things Luke had ever said to her, and his tone was laced with fury and hurt.

“Why not? I’ve seen your routine, and you are not busy.”

She was a stubborn thing.

Luke stared at her, grey eyebrow quirking upwards into his fading hairline. Rey stared right back, arms folded over her chest and backlit by the twin suns in a way that made her small body seem almost otherworldly. She was standing so close he could see the prickles of gooseflesh on the exposed skin of her shoulders, her clothes ill-suited for the coming winter months.

He pushed away his concern even as he refused to dignify her jab with one of his own. Luke wasn’t going to get attached to the thorn in his side, and he certainly wasn’t going to debate with it. He had resumed tending the small garden with a huff.

Besides. She would be gone soon.


	4. Chapter Four

Two months in, and Luke was starting to crumble. Every day, she asked him a question - just one, the same question she always asked. Luke never responded, simply staring at her for a heartbeat before resuming whatever activity Rey had interrupted.

The girl then spent the rest of the day’s one-sided chatter filling his mind with random factoids about her life, the lives of her friends, his own sister - anyone, really. Rey’s hands never stilled as she did this, her work alongside him just as industrious as before. Luke knew what she was doing, he wasn’t a fool. She was humanizing all of the people she assumed would die if he did not agree to train her. Rey was scribing the list of people she felt she would fail.

Luke had his own list, a larger list, of those whom he had betrayed to their deaths by his arrogance. The false belief that Luke could save his nephew - the second coming of his own father - from following Vader’s shade into the Dark. 

His list was written with red ink in his memories, and endless loop playing itself over and over even when his eyes were closed in sleep. Children whose parents had trusted their lives into his care. Every single person Kylo Ren had gutted or would someday gut with the twisted blade of his lightsaber. Every life extinguished by the Starkiller. And now, his best friend; his own brother-in-law. 

Blood ran down his gnarled hands and into the soil of the island, and suddenly the sun was too bright and the waves were too loud and Luke was done. He rounded on Rey, anger clouding his face and twisting his features into a snarl as he unleashed two months of frustration on the bewildered girl. 

“I know what you’re doing, Rey - you’re trying to guilt me into helping you. But I’m neither that old and senile nor that stupid to fall for your manipulations. You can keep telling me all your lovely little stories about people I will never see again; or that I’ve never met and will never meet - but it won’t matter. I will not train you, because the Jedi need to die. I will not be the one to prolong the cancer that they have inflicted on this galaxy.”

Rey’s chest heaved, and for a horrible moment Luke thought she was going to cry. Instead, she bared her teeth as her hackles rose. He did not have to be attuned to the Force to feel it crackle along his skin, unleashed and angry in her bones. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I have this power inside of me - and I don’t know what to do with it. I need someone to help me find my place in all of this. Kylo Ren has already offered - should I take him up on it, Master Luke?” Rey stamped her foot, tossing down the trowel she had been holding before she stomped off towards her hut angrily.

In her temper, her youth showed. Luke watched her retreating back until the stones swallowed it up, and resumed digging in the soft dirt. Her words whirled in his mind, the very real danger of losing her to his fallen nephew forming a ball in the pit of his stomach. 

Luke cursed the wickedly persistent little guttersnipe under his breath as he angrily dug out a vegetable and added it to the small pile. She’d finally done it. She’d found the one thing he couldn’t abide and skewered him with it. 

Luke wouldn’t let her fall the same way Ben had fallen. He knew he wouldn’t, as sure as the twin suns would peek over the horizon tomorrow morning to the shrill caws of the sea-birds. But he wasn’t going to teach her how to be a Jedi, either. 

Three lessons. That’s all. 

She would be gone soon.


	5. Chapter Five

Luke had practically kicked down her door the next morning, grumpy with himself, the universe, and her. Rey startled awake, nearly falling off her lumpy pallet with a squeak and a flurry of ratty bedcovers.

“Three lessons. No more. The first one in fifteen minutes.” He turned and stomped out of the room, completely missing the elated smile that split her young face.

Twenty minutes later, he was deeply regretting his decision to teach her anything. The girl was eager, extremely powerful, and completely lacking in any basic knowledge. The Dark called to her like it already owned her, and Rey was hungry for anything that could give her answers; make her whole. She was a powder keg in a room on fire, and Luke was going to be caught in the fallout - it was inevitable.

In the wake of her display of power, Luke had scolded Rey more harshly than he had intended, leaving her clinging to the rock she had split in two as he stalked back to the hut to think. His pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out the chortles of the porg colony nearby. He was afraid. Afraid of her power, and afraid of losing her. Afraid of failure again. _You fucked up the entire galaxy with your stubbornness and pride. You’ll do it again_.

That evening, Luke watched her as she ladled out the vegetable soup into two bowls, seemingly unaffected by his dark mood. He studied her movements, stiffened by cold and sore muscles. Her hair, worn in a child’s style, even though she had to be into her twenties. The strange quirks that desert life, and living hand-to-mouth for so long, had written into her very being. The strange thought that her eyes looked terribly familiar tickled the corner of his mind, though he was equally certain he had never met Rey before her uninvited stay on his island.

Sometimes, she reminded him of himself, once a naive dusty farmboy with no concept of the life he had fallen into. Of the power that bound his bones together, the destruction he could leave in his wake. The specter of his arrogance haunted him even here, this remote corner of the galaxy.

Even so - she was different. Her spirit and soul were the opposite of Ben’s, as surely as if you had flipped a coin and found one to be heads and the other tails. Rey could resist the call of the Dark, if she were properly motivated. If she understood.

Luke consigned himself to the universe once more. Fate, or the Force, had brought this persistent, powerful, lost girl to him. And he was supposed to help her, regardless of what it did to him.

He threw Rey a small smile as she handed over his bowl, startling her into nearly dropping it.

Perhaps she would stay.


	6. Chapter Six

It had been far more than three lessons in the nine and a half months between their first, and their final.

Rey has grown to mean something far more important to Luke than he ever could have conceived of himself - a beloved niece, a surrogate daughter. He had not only become accustomed to her presence, but sought it out. For the first time in fifteen years, Luke felt nearly lonely in the rare moments he was by himself.

Days were spent in chores, or in lessons. For all her untamed power, Rey had taken the bridle of training well. She meditated with a fluidity he admired, slipping in and out of the Force as easily as taking off a jacket. Her proficiency with a staff had translated gracefully into the blue-bladed lightsaber she bore, even though she occasionally acted like it had a second end.

Luke contemplated bastardizing his own green saber to give her a saber-staff, but a quiet feeling in his chest told him the time wasn’t right. He wouldn’t call it the Force - for all his lessons and teaching, he had not allowed himself to fall back into old patterns. It was more an intuition. There were other plans in play for Rey.

Besides - if he lacked a saber, she would be without a sparring partner. And he would not send her against Kylo Ren untrained. Luke would let her bruise and bloody herself a thousand times on the rocks of his island before he’d put Rey before the Jedi Killer as a lamb to slaughter. Luke was relentless, and gave no quarter in their fights. She would surely receive none from his nephew.

No matter how many times he knocked her down, Rey would struggle back up, scraped and scratched, but full of fire. It had not been long before she had landed her fair share of blows, his creaky body protesting its mistreatment after years of practicing alone.

Luke had fallen with little grace back into the role of a teacher, his patience eroded by fear and his kindness roughened by age. Rey hadn’t seemed to mind. She accepted his ill-temper as easily as she had his good moods, patiently outlasting the thunderclouds he carried inside him.

“I won’t fail you,” she had said, once, determination brightening her eyes and setting the line of her jaw. And Luke had believed her. Had tried to chase away his doubts regarding her power, her destiny, the quality of her restraint and control. Because it was Rey, and all men are somewhat blind regarding their daughters, trueborn or otherwise.

In the evenings, they huddled around the fire, shoulder to shoulder oftentimes as a ward against the cold air. Many a night was spent talking long into the small hours, discussing anything and everything from landspeeder engines to the mysteries of the Force or what Chewbacca could possibly be doing on the Falcon all by himself. The tease and pull of friendly sparring. Their laughter rang off the craggy rocks and skittered along the waves, scaring off the sea-birds.

 Neither of them cared to discuss the past. Occasionally, if the mood was right, Rey would start describing her days under the hot sun of Jakku, her clear voice outlining the horrors of the life she had lived in plain, unfiltered words. Luke would listen carefully, never interrupting. Sometimes he recounted stories of Tatooine in the same quiet voice she used, her hazel eyes soft on his face.

On the one occasion that Rey had broached the topic of his self-imposed exile, Luke had lost his temper so thoroughly that she has been left with only two options - fight, or leave. Rey had stood quietly, bidding him a polite good night before retreating to her own hut. Luke had sat around the embers of the fire till the sun rose again, ashamed of his reaction in the face of her valid curiosity. _She’ll leave, if she knows what I’ve done. She’ll leave, and then where will I be?_ The question unnerved him. The next morning, neither of them discussed the incident, and his self-flagellation was never raised again.

He understood her persistence now. The desert was a good teacher of patience. It had also taught her the art of fixing broken things. Luke supposed, in some way, Rey was methodically gathering the broken pieces of himself and laying them back at his feet, patiently waiting for him to pick them back up again. He did not believe it was a conscious action on her part - more a function of her own being.

 Perhaps she was right, after all. Perhaps he should return to the Resistance. Not now - but soon.

The Thala-sirens lowed, and Luke shook himself from his reverie. It was nearly time for their evening meal - the year was circling around again, and darkness was coming sooner than he had anticipated.

 Luke was growing old.

Stepping out of his hut, he could not spot Rey in the dimming light of the twin suns. No matter - she would be along shortly. Luke busied himself tending the fire, but as the suns slipped beyond the horizon with no sign of Rey, his concern grew.

And then - he noticed the fire lit inside her small hut. It was rather too early in the autumn for her to need one for warmth, and something in Luke’s chest pinged in alarm. He stepped over the threshold of her room, the sight before him chasing away any control Luke had ever claimed to hold over himself.


	7. Chapter Seven

The Jedi Killer sat before her fire, hand clasped tightly in hers, the pair of them staring into each other’s eyes as if they were the only people in the entire galaxy that mattered. Rey was shivering and cold, wrapped in the blanket from her bed. Kylo seemed strangely unguarded, younger - an echo of Ben that the Dark hadn’t quite managed to kill.

Kylo had Rey. He had done it right under Luke’s nose, seduced her away to the dark side and Luke had lost her as surely as he had lost Ben so many years ago.  _You failed._

Luke’s hand raised of its own accord, rage bubbling within him as he roared like a wounded animal. For the first time in years, the Force sprang from his fingertips, exploding the rock around them in a shower of pebbles. Rey screamed, and Kylo faded back into the ether, the haunted look on his face a knife in Luke’s stomach.

The look of betrayal in Rey’s eyes twisted it deeper, as he lowered his hand in utter shock at what he had done; what he had seen. Luke was unbalanced and ill-prepared for the verbal onslaught coming his way from the young woman before him.

“What have you done? I was so close - I was bringing him back!” Rey’s eyes were wide, panicked, but the line of her mouth was hard and angry.

Luke growled, fear of losing her lodged deep in his chest. “You don’t understand. There is no good left in him - Ben Solo is gone. He cannot come back from what he has done.”  _And neither can I._

“ _You_  don’t understand!” Rey cried, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. “The Force has been connecting us for months - I’ve been talking to him - I was so close, Master Luke. I have to go. If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn. I’ve felt it.” She was strong in her conviction, her feet planted sturdily on the rock beneath her. Through his newly-opened and raw connection, Luke felt the muddy waters of her spirt, a dusky grey color with the bright conviction of Light shining through. He could see she was telling the truth - a tattered line of string, barely visible to his rusty divination, twined around her soul and stretched across the galaxy. A Force Bond.

Fresh fear rattled his bones, freezing his blood to ice in his veins. She wasn’t ready. He would destroy her. Ben Solo was dead. Luke told her as much, panic making his words harsh and his movements jerky. He was going to lose her.  _Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t I sense it?_

“He told me the truth!” Rey cried, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. “He told me what happened that night. That you tried to kill him as he slept, and he pulled the room down on you in self-defense.”

“He still murdered those children!” Luke roared, their pale faces scrolling through his mind. “He didn’t have to kill them. But he did, and he became a creature of Snoke’s bent. Ben Solo is gone, Rey; I’m sorry. But I can’t let you leave.” He held his hand out to her, coaxing. “Come back. Let’s talk about this. I want to know more - tell me about this Bond. I can help you. Let me help you.”

Luke would have said anything in that moment to convince her to come with him, to repair their relationship that he had shattered as effectively as those stones. Because he knew - in the end, it was his fault for not telling her the true story of Ben’s turn straight out. He had lost her as he had lost his own nephew - with his pride.

Rey refused, looking down at his outstretched hand with a contempt she had never held for him before now. “I’m not staying. I’m going to Ben. You’ll see. You’ll understand.”

Desperate, Luke twisted his palm, calling upon the Force to hold her in place. He couldn’t lose Rey. He couldn’t watch her Light descend into darkness. He couldn’t make another mistake like this.

“This is not going to go the way you think!” He roared, using all his strength to hold her still, in place, to keep her close - safe from the Jedi Killer he had so effectively created.

Rey raised her own hand, anger making her movements jerky and stiff. She threw him against the ruined wall of her hut with barely a thought, before turning and running into the night without so much as a backward glance.

Luke stood to chase her, but even as he struggled to his feet he realized the futility of that gesture. His back and leg screamed at him, rueful of their mistreatment. He could never match her pace - Rey was far faster than him, especially in the dark.

She would be gone soon.

Luke stumbled creakily to the edge of the cliff where he knew the Falcon to be parked far below. He imagined he could hear her footfalls on the rocks, echoing dimly around him as he closed his eyes and sought her in the Force.

She was a beacon - anger, betrayal, pain, fear. But beyond that - so much hope, and resolve. Conviction. A sense of justice and duty. And above all else, love. An unconditional love, untainted by the fingers of darkness he had feared held her fast.

Luke sagged against the stone beside him, relief taking the breath from his body and weakening his limbs. He had not yet lost Rey. He could only hope the darkness in Kylo would not rob her Light from the world.

Perhaps he had trained her well enough. Perhaps she could withstand it. He could dare to hope.

Perhaps his purpose had been for this moment after all, all the mistakes he had made leading him here. Perhaps the fifteen years of exile had worn him down just enough, allowing him to help Rey redeem his greatest error that had cost so many others so much.

Moments later, the blue afterburners of the Falcon illuminated the night sky. The ship exited atmosphere with far less grace than it had entered it eleven months, two weeks, and four days prior.

Luke kept his eyes on the blue speck till it disappeared from view, and then he closed his eyes. Waves gnawed the coastline below him, hungry and relentless. The sea-birds were quiet.

The flicker of Rey’s spirit lingered in his chest, strengthening his resolve. Using the Force, he sought his sister for the first time many years. Luke could only hope she was still attuned to him after all this time. He had a lot of explaining to do. And he was going to need a ship.

He would be gone, soon.


End file.
